


Ash

by tornyourdress



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-06-15
Updated: 2010-06-15
Packaged: 2017-10-10 03:19:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 471
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/94887
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tornyourdress/pseuds/tornyourdress
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-series vignette.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ash

There is a taste in the air of ash. You are never quite sure whether you are imagining it or not, whether it is the lingering debris of those dead cities, dead citizens or whether it is simply your mind playing tricks on you.

You never were the fanciful sort. Ah, now, Elim, see how you lie even to yourself! In your years of exile, did you not let yourself indulge, upon occasion, in dreams of home? But you have never been the sort for pathetic fallacy, and when the air clears you must admit to yourself that what you taste is not those dead cities.

You taste the bitterness of your years away on a wretched space station, and the ache of returning to a home that no longer is. You taste your loss, not other people's, though it would be nobler if it were the latter. You taste the memory of a man who died in your arms, a hero, a friend, a –

It is, of course, no use dwelling on what might have been.

When did you forgive him, exactly, for what he did to Ziyal? There you go again, Elim, with your euphemisms. Killed. He killed Ziyal. You can say it, can't you? The words don't make it more or less real. The fact remains. He killed her. Dear, sweet girl.

Oh, you didn't talk about it. There was too much history weighing down on both of you, on Kira too, and you were there to get the job done. To help him free Cardassia. To help him be a hero.

How long did it take you to stop seeing her face when you looked at his? A shorter time than you care to admit. Was it when you watched him shoot Rusot? Was it then that you understood? How nice and tidy that would be.

Surely, Elim, surely you weren't so easily persuaded by hot breath in your ear and on your neck, by a warm body next to yours?

But you understand the necessity of dealing with transgressors quickly. You understood then. Even then. You just didn't want to, when your ideas of what was for the good of Cardassia differed so very, very much.

There is a taste in the air of ash, the hollow victory of a clear shot at Weyoun, as though revenge can ever really do anything to remove the deadness in your mouth. Regret, lost hopes, lost dreams, and how senseless it is to dwell on the past and all that is lost. How impractical, when there is a world to be rebuilt. You are rebuilding it. You will rebuild it.

But in your mouth is the bile of your own foolishness at still, even now, imagining what it would be like, to rebuild Cardassia with Damar at your side.


End file.
